My Neighbor from Bratislava
In 1969, Czechoslovakia, divided by a Czech and Slovak population, was separated into two parts: The Czech Socialist Republic, and The Slovak Socialist Republic. I know this, because my grandfather, Švejk Hašek, was a member of the communist party of Czechoslovakia, under the command of Alexander Dubček. Czech by birth, my grandfather was a firm believer of his constituents, and the force of the country to overcome the disaster of past decades. He also knew Dubček would do everything in his power to promote a lighter communist regime –the first step toward democracy. My grandfather’s greatest joy in life, even more than the birth of his children and grandchildren, was the dissolution of Czechoslovakia on January 1st, 1993, by separating the regions into two separate nations: The Czech Republic and Slovakia. It fills me with joy he was still alive to see the fruition of his work and dreams. He died three years later on November 25th, 1996, in the Czech Republic.
My grandfather’s beliefs have always had a big influence on the way I see my country and its people. And even when I know it’s not comparable –that things have changed– I remain faithful to his teachings. When he died, we mourned him in his house –a beautiful townhouse on Václavák, or Wenceslas Square. My sister, being the older one, read a quote from Kafka’s Metamorphosis –my grandfather would have loved it.
“He thought back on his family with deep emotion and love. His conviction that he would have to disappear was, if possible, even firmer than his sister’s. He remained in this state of empty and peaceful reflection until the tower clock struck three in the morning. He still saw that outside the window everything was beginning to grow light. Then, without his consent, his head sank down to the floor, and from his nostrils streamed his last weak breath.”
After the service, my family drank coffee and shared stories, but I wanted to feel my grandfather’s essence in every room of the house; in every object. I finished in his bedroom. It’s spacious, with 1970’s furniture, washed-out burgundy on the walls, and five black and white photos of the family. Next to his bed, an old copy of Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. I opened with wardrobe and found his diaries and photo albums stashed behind boxes like hidden treasures. Part emotional turmoil, part manifesto, I left the house without saying a word, carrying my grandfather’s memories and ideals in a cotton bag.
*
If I had known you weren’t going to live your own life, and by that I mean you were going to live it the same way your grandfather did, I would have never accepted a drink; an invitation to your house; your marriage proposal. I refuse to believe I was nothing more than a nationality; history in my veins. Or that you can achieve such level of selfishness. The worst part is, now, I am sitting in the Old Town Square, looking at the pigeons eat from the hand of foreigners, and savagely flying away; shitting everywhere, waiting for you.
Your apartment –number 12– was on the opposite end. I was entering the building, fully packed with my groceries and bag, determined to go up two floors on my own. You passed by me on the staircase without a glimpse, but when I got to my apartment, and the doorknob wouldn’t work, you helped me. You unlocked the door, and carried my bags into the kitchenette. You saw I was carrying a book in my bag, Journey in the Moonlight by Antal Szerb, and I told you it is the greatest Hungarian book ever written. You made a gesture with your face that I couldn’t understand at the time, but now I know was because of the Soviet Union’s old relation with Hungary. You easily distinguished my words, and knew I am Slovak, but that didn’t stop you. I don’t know why.
*
It’s been two weeks since the death of my grandfather, and I’m half through the diaries and albums. I haven’t had the time to check everything, I suppose; work has occupied almost all my life. Work and… a woman. She is my neighbor, and she is Slovak. She must be around my age; I don’t like to ask people their age –it brings too many memories. Maybe she had a dissident family as well. Nationalists and anti-communists. I don’t know her story. We had a drink at the bar next to the building –an old umkempt place with plastic tablecloths and fake flowers. It also has a moose head on the wall, which I clearly recall because she insisted on the cruelty of hunting, and how she could never mistreat an animal. She wants a ferret. The conversation didn’t last long because she was in a hurry, but later that night, I knocked on her door and we had sex.
Yesterday I received a letter from my sister; she lives in Plzeň –a place stuck in time, 94km away from Prague.
Dear brother,
The last couple of weeks have been a sad time. I feel lost and emotionally broken. When I got back from Prague, my husband was not home. I took the streetcar after waiting half an hour at the bus station –I’m sure I said something. Back in the house I called his name, but it was empty. There was no note; nothing that could possibly tell me where he was. Two days later he returned with an arrogant smile and a vague apology. “I didn’t know you were coming back,” he said. I feel in a Joni Mitchell painting: alone and fed up with myself, drinking and smoking to the march of the clock. I think he is cheating on me, but I don’t know how bad that is if he is still with me. I’ve become a frigid woman. In your last letter you told me you met someone. Who is she? Are you planning on getting married? Maybe it’s too soon to tell. You should enjoy your unmoored life a little longer.
With love,
your sister.
*
“I was born in what today is Bratislava, Slovakia. My parents and grandparents were born in what today is Slovakia,” I told you. After various assertions about the inequality between the two regions in the old Czechoslovakia, you continued asking me about our way of living, and the academic level of my family. It didn’t really matter to me, I have to say. I saw you as a historian. Tall and thin, with your hair pulled back, and your big eyes and nose. I guess I was falling in love. What else did I have? A job in a small radio broadcaster, and a small apartment close to yours. One day you came to my doorstep with a bouquet of flowers and a promise. Four months after we met we got married in a small civil union with your family as witnesses. Your were the same age as your grandfather when he got married –I was happy. I have never regretted my decisions, but I do wonder what could have happened if things had gone differently. Did I make the correct choice, or was I just impulsive? I am still waiting for you at the cafe in the Old Town Square. It’s been almost an hour. You have made me doubt myself, and that should be punishable by law. Maybe I’ve driven you away with my maniac ways and incessant questions. You are such a quiet man living in the past.
*
Dear brother,
The news of your marriage is nonsensical. Or is it that my reaction is biased by my hopes for you? My husband left me for another woman. It’s been two months now; I didn’t say anything because I wanted to go through it alone. I haven’t granted the divorce. I have too much self-respect to be subjugated by a truck driver. I should have never married him, and your soon-to-be wife will end resenting you as much as I resent my husband. How can you be with a woman you can barely stand? What happened to all her annoying habits? Once an object of ridicule, always and object of ridicule. Don’t you realize you are too self-obsessed? Oh brother, I love you so, and I don’t want to see you getting hurt because you cannot separate life from duty. Duty to what? An old sack of bones.
With love,
you sister.
I was late and I apologized –I went to my mother’s house to give her my grandfather’s photo albums, and spent more time than expected talking about ancient family stories. I never showed you the pictures, but why should I? You have always seen my family as a rival. I walked nine blocks to the Old Town Square. On the way I saw couples walking with dogs, and foreign students laughing and drinking their lattes. A young woman saw me and smiled, but I didn’t do anything because I respect you. Isn’t that what you are supposed to expect? You asked me were I was, but as soon as I started talking you stopped listening. We ordered breakfast and we didn’t say much after that. We went to the cinema because you like matinées, and the old theater doesn’t work after 14:00 o’clock. The room was almost empty, and we sat in the dark in the middle of the row. He Who Gets Slapped by Victor Sjöström started playing. The white light from the screen filled the room and I could see your silhouette siting beside me, staring at the screen. Our arms were side to side, but there was no warmth.
“Laughter, the bitterest and most subtle death to hope. The agony of that night exhausted Paul Beaumont’s power to suffer. For there is a limit to what men can suffer, and live. A strange thing, the heart of a man, that loves, suffers, and despairs, yet has courage to hope, believe, and love, again. I say serious things, and people laugh at me! What is death? What is life? What is love?”
Text by [Alberto Lizárraga](albertolizarraga.svbtle.com)